I just finished reading 'Switching to Linux', new blog post by Tynan. I don't know anything about Linux, but I'm already working on switching my OS to Linux.

I always get excited when Tynan writes about new stuffs, and as soon as I read it I jump into it, and gradually I lose interest over it.

For example: After reading this post by Tynan about why you should learn to program, I started to learn to program. I started learning PHP and after some time I lost interest on it.

However, I did learn some stuffs about programming through PHP, and that's still a win for me. And since, I have all the basic concepts with me, If I need to learn again, I can catch up quick.

But the problem is that I start working on whatever Tynan writes and lose interest overtime. Even if I won't reach to the end of it, I need to try it.

I really liked Tynan's text editor. I asked him what it was on twitter and he said, Sublime Text. And after that I started using Sublime Text.

Some months ago, I saw a post Tynan wrote about Dvorak and why he switched. As soon as I read that post I switched my keyboard layout from QWERTY to Dvorak. Of course, it wasn't easy. It took nearly 2 months for me to get comfortable with it.

I had to regret once during the initial stage of switching, because I was in middle of a project where I had to write a lot. And since I had just changed my keyboard layout to Dvorak, I had hard time completing the project.

The problem isn't that I switched to Dvorak. In fact, I'm so glad that I changed my keyboard layout. It's so fast, I'm free from carpal tunnel syndrome and I find it effortless. I even wrote an article about it and why everyone should switch. Here's the link: Why You Won't Regret Switching Your Keyboard Layout from QWERTY to Dvorak. But the problem was that I jumped on it blindly. Without thinking that it would take time for me get better at it.

After that I jumped into dotsies after reading Tynan's suggestion about dotsies font.

As soon as I read about something from his blog, I need to try it. It's like an addiction.

Thank gosh! I didn't jump into violin. If I did jump into violin, I would be interested in first few days or week and then I'd lose interest over it. I even wished to have an RV, so that I could live life similar to his.

The problem is that I'm blindly copying him. Instead, I should have tried figuring out if I really wanted to do it or not.

I'm sure Windows is way better for me at the moment than Linux. Because I'm completely new to it and I doubt that I'll have all the applications I need in Linux. I'll need to invest time on Linux to start getting better at it.

What I did notice is that none of the stuff Tynan advocate is bad. It's actually productive and efficient in the long run. it's just that I have this urge to try everything he writes, even if I'm not completely interested. I say to myself that I'll like it even if it doesn't interest me at the moment because Tynan is a cool guy and everything he tries will be worth it in the end.

I personally think this is a bad habit. What do you think? Does this happen to you too?

So now, I know I'll switch to Linux, Do you guys have any recommendation on Linux for beginners?

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The photo on left is of Tynan's laptop with sublime text. That was the image that urged me to switch to Sublime text. And I did it, eventually.

I think it's a mixed bag. A lot of people I know just buy whatever I buy (even down to motorcycle/RV) because they have similar principles and criteria, and they know that I research the hell out of everything. I do the same with book recommendations-- I have 3-4 people from whom I'll take any book recommendation, even if the book sounds crappy to me.

On the other hand, if there's anything I hope people emulate me on, it's making independent decisions that suit them. My main problem with the typical school / degree / job / wedding / retirement path is that people are on autopilot. I think that my decisions are better than those defaults, at least for people who like my writing, but certainly not as good as the set of decisions you could make for yourself.

To wrap it up, I think that if you're leading your own life and you use my posts to add things into it that work out for you, that's a great thing. If you blindly follow my recommendations, that's probably not a good thing. To me it sounds like there's some balance, like with the violin thing, but maybe you could try to predict a little better whether or not you'll really want to follow through with some things (like programming, if you didn't really find it interesting).

I've never had to regret following your suggestion. My brain thinks that whatever you suggest is really great and missing out on those stuffs will be really a huge loss for me. For example: I read about Dvorak in your blog and I switched to Dvorak. I didn't like switching during the initial stage, but now I'm so glad that I switched to Dvorak and I can't imagine what it would have been if I hadn't made the switch.

I followed your suggestion even when I didn't like it. I didn't see any benefit at that moment for short term, but in the long term, it was a huge investment.

Same with Sublime text. It's making me more productive. Minimalism is making me happier. Wearing wool is making it convenient and easy for me. Eating healthy foods is keeping me on shape. Learning to make good habits is helping me become a better person. Learning new language is helping me connect with other people of the world. Not wearing shoes is keeping my feet healthy. The list goes on and on.....

I've also made huge improvement on my writing after following your blog and writing style.

"Successful people do their work when they don't even feel like doing. That's what sets apart successful people from unsuccessful ones." I read that somewhere and now I've realized it myself too. Maybe it was from "The Art of War"

And it's this realization that's making me do stuffs which I don't feel like doing. Thinking that I'll be successful in particular task if I keep doing it when I don't feel like doing.

For example: I learned to program because of your suggestion, even if it didn't align to my interest. And now I can create Websites and WordPress themes (PHP+HTML+CSS) and earn some extra cash when I need to. I can also modify my websites when I want to, which would have cost me lots of money.

So yes, following your advice has made me a better person and increased my skill set even if it didn't align to my interest.

Since, my brain is wired to think that missing out on your suggestion would be a big loss for me in the long run, I automatically start working on stuffs you suggest, even if it doesn't align to my interest.

In the end, I've come to realize that, Instead of following and settling for traditional mediocre lifestyle, it's far better to follow your suggestion and live an independent life outside the box.

I think this is a great post. I am hugely influenced by Tynan - especially in my writing style - but there's a lot I choose to do myself as well. As I've seen written on here, you have to live your own life and find your own interests.

Indeed, once I found myself writing similar to Tynan. I didn't think about it for sometime and later when I re-checked my writings, I found huge improvement. I was writing better than before.

I used to write everything out of context. I never gave examples in my writing and never related my life experience with certain philosophy. After applying his writing style, my writing became more up to the point and effective.

I used to do this big time with Steve Pavlina. I read all his articles multiple times, and regarded everything he said as absolute truth. I modeled a lot of my lifestyle around his, and even began to talk and write like him to some extent.

It was certainly better than following what everyone else was doing like the average person, but it was quite creepy and certainly less than optimal living. For me it was just a phase I went through for a year or two before finding my self and developing my own voice.

I think my advice would be is to realize that although Tynan's got a really cool lifestyle, it's one that's perfect for him, not you. You have to identify the difference in your values from Tynan's and that should help you identify what behaviors you can model from him and which are better to leave to him.

I think that's same with Tynan. He has set an example of being independent, thinking out of box and designing your own lifestyle instead of following the traditional college/marriage/job/children lifestyle.

If I keep following him blindly then I'll probably be going against his core principle of thinking for yourself and designing your own lifestyle. Ironic.

He did, but when I first got into personal development I was really lost and insecure with myself. I saw people like Kobe model their game after Michael Jordan, so my fourteen year old self used the same logic to try to model myself after Steve. I've calibrated since, but I think if you're really lost down the wrong road in life, modeling your "game" around someone like Tynan or Steve is a decent game plan until you're more level headed and able to make a better decision.

My impression of Enwil from this post is he's reasonably intelligent as he's shown he's conscious enough to question his behavior in the first place. Even if he's been a little trigger happy in adopting Tynan's behaviors in the past I think he'll be fine long term.

I was thinking the other day about the varying approaches people have to others who are much more successful than them at something. For example, you probably consider Tynan much more successful than you at lifestyle design (or maybe some more specific skills).

The responses fall roughly into 6 categories, arranged from least to most desirable:

Destructive jealousy: the worst alternative is to want to undermine the successful person, which hurts you and other people

Destructive apathy: also bad is to disregard their achievements as uninteresting or worthless. Psychologically this insulates your ego from having to accept its own inferiority at something, but results in your actual self never achieving very much valuable.

Passive apathy: similarly, you can regard their achievements as being unattanably difficult - something that "some people but not me" can achieve. Sometimes this is accurate and sensible, but other times you would dissuade yourself from trying something valuable. This is also a subconscious protection against failure. ("if I don't succeed then I'll be worse than this person!")

Passive mimickry: this is simple mindless copying of the most obvious choices the successful person makes, without thinking about the reasons behind the choices. When you see cliques of kids all wearing the same clothes, this is often one or two trendsetters who are seen as successful by many of their peers, who then copy superficial details. Passive mimickry can be because of a lack of other ideas, or because of a fear of being inferior if they don't copy.

Active mimickry: alternatively, you can aim to copy their final achievements/lifestyle. At least here you are choosing the tactics in a way that fits your current life! If you were to copy Tynan like this you'd eventually find yourself living in an RV, learning Japanese and ballet and working on a tech project by yourself, probably struggling with serious motivation issues because you'd be spending your time on things that are likely not a good fit for you.

Active inspiration; the ideal approach is to be inspired by people who you consider more successful than you. What lessons can you learn from how they do things? What things are possible that you weren't aware of before?

1 & 2 are recipes to be unsuccessful

3 & 4 & 5 are recipes to be successful but probably not happy

6 is a recipe to be both happy and successful :)

I'd guess that you're a combination of 4, 5 and 6, so my answer to your question is to think more like number 6, looking for reasons and lessons rather than instructions and solutions

Whether good or bad depends on what you make of it. If you follow him blindly, and then stick with it just because he's doing it, then yes, bad habit, stop.

But if you check out something based on what he says, then decide it's also a good choice for you, personally, and decide to stick with it, well, that's good!

I actually think that if you follow the latter strategy, it's a good choice as long as your views align somewhat with Tynan's. Because of his efforts to do that, he's pretty experienced in finding what works for him. And if your views align, I think there's a good chance it'll work for you, or at least help you find something that does.

The reason I started following him blindly was that my subconscious knew that he makes good choices in life. And I loved all of his choice, except for some stuffs which I was not interested in. For example: Ballet, violin, Japanese language, etc.

So, yes, I should decide if the suggestion made by Tynan is good for me personally or not, based on my interest and views.

I personally think it's a bad habit. Tynan is living his life according to him. We can all look at what he's doing and reflect on that, applying to our own situations. However, you have to put everything into context. The place where Tynan is now took him 29 years (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) of gradual adaptation, occasionally spurred by intense deliberate change.

It's not that it's a bad idea to do any of these things -- learning to program, switching to Dvorak, living in an RV, using Linux, using Sublime Text (it's awesome). It's the assumption that everything he tries is also optimal for you. I'd have a challenge for you: Wait a month. See if you're still interested in Linux. If you are, that's great -- it's an awesome OS and you'll arguably learn more about computers than you would with any other platform.

If you're not -- no problem! It's not for everyone and the time needed to get good with it is steeper than other operating systems. Unless you're a programmer or a power user, you might not even notice the benefits.

All of that being said, I support expanding comfort zones and learning new skills. I support trying new processes and weeding out those that don't work. I'd only urge you take pause and reflect.

After following and emulating him, I've never had to regret. I feel that his suggestion are so valuable that I don't want to miss it. Not even one. For example: I learned Dvorak and used Sublime text after reading about it on his blog. Now I'm so happy that I switched to Dvorak that I can't imagine what it would have been if I hadn't made the switch.

I started copying his way of writing. After that, I made huge progress on my writing. My writing used to be out of context without practical advice. But after starting to follow his writing style I kept writing everything up to the point with suitable examples to make it easier to comprehend. I figured out that good post consists of practical advice and some steps to implement it in daily life.

I'm living a minimalist lifestyle. And I'm happier than before. This all happened because of Tynan.

So, my brain thinks that if I keep copying him, everything in my life will eventually get better. That's the reason I've been copying him blindly, which I realized recently.

Now, I think that if I switch to Linux then it'll be easier for me later. Just like how switching to Dvorak has made it easier for me now.

However, thanks for suggesting me to pause and reflect. I'll definitely apply that and see what happens. How I'll feel and how much progress I'll make.

I'm thinking of switching to Linux lately. I'll try it and if I don't like it then I can change it later.

I'm beginner at this, so what's the best way to switch to Linux and which version of Linux is better for me? I don't have lots of disk space left on my laptop and do will I have to format my laptop?

Is it a bad thing? Personally there's much much worse you could be doing/emulating right now :). I think a lot of people before they become 'self-actualized' for lack of a better term copy others unconsciously. I think they may be trying to get a feel for what they want and a great way to start with that is to find people who already come closest to what that vision is and try to dissect them. With that if there's one important realization you need to make for yourself it's what you want to get out of your life.

If you look around you people are copying each other all the time. I don't want to pick out particulars but one comes to mind - the whole hip hop culture, drugs, acting thug, calling everything 'gay' condescendingly, etc... I like listening to rap and like the genius wordplay behind it and all but a lot of the listeners in my experience tend to copy the not so great things either like the lifestyle. Who am I to judge - if that's what people really want out of their lives then that's perfectly fine. The only real disaster I guess is when people make an unconscious choice to adopt these persona's rather than a conscious choice. You know you are copying and since you are making a conscious case if you decide to continue then you're good. Given you have your doubts though and your experiences with not holding interest with Tynan's hobbies I think this phase will pass and you will kind of branch out and model your own persona that fits you.

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That last line, however, took three minutes to type. It's excruciating. Why?

I'm switching to the Dvorak keyboard layout. For those who don't know, typewriters started out with their keys arranged in an "ABCD" configuration this caused the hammers to bind, so the standard "QWERTY" keyboard was invented.